June 21, 2011

Says a commenter named Hamp at the blog JoeMyGod, at a post about Bristol Palin (and what she wrote in her memoir about losing her virginity):

It takes two to tango as it takes two to have sex. And if they're both drunk, if they both made the decision to drink to the point of blackout, then why is only the man at fault? Unless the woman was drugged or forced to drink then both parties are equally responsible. And how does one force another person to drink wine coolers to the point of no return? Did he tie her down and force the drinks down her throat? I doubt it. She's just another person refusing to take responsibility for her own actions. She wasn't raped she just got drunk and made what she now thinks was a bad decision.

JoeMyGod is a prominent blog that has won awards in the politics/LGBT category. I noticed this post because I was getting blog traffic from it after it linked to my post "Did Levi Johnston rape Bristol Palin?" I'm not sure the people over there discussing Bristol's book realize that she did not apply the word "rape" to what happened to her. I did. I looked at her facts, and I introduced the legal concept. Bristol (and her family) did not bring in the police. It seems to me that she took responsibility for her own actions and expressed her sadness over what happened. She did not call it rape. She may have described the facts with the intent that the reader would think what I thought. I only read a short excerpt from her book, so I don't know what her overall intent is. Perhaps she's trying to say: Girls, don't drink yourself into a stupor when you're out in a tent with a boy.

There are comments in that thread like "I just...well....I....Skankity-skank-skank" and "The apple didn't fall far from THAT twisted tree"/".... and the semen doesn't fall far from the oft offered ova." But after Hamp's disquisition on on the mutuality of sexual intercourse, FreudianNips says:

That's just lovely Hamp. Just lovely. I take it you are not a woman? I am, and while I did not consider it rape since I was in a relationship... I can tell you there are not much worse feelings than waking up knowing you've been pounded and not remembering it....

I think most of us are all familiar with the mechanics of both male and female genitalia. Is it a stretch to say that it is maybe more of the man's fault when "blackout sex" occurs, in certain situations (specifically this one if its true)? I mean, he's the one who has to get hard and stick it in her. And let's be real, all a woman ever really has to do is lie there, conscious or not, for sex or rape (BIG DIFFERENCE BTW) to occur....

I don't want to judge anybody or make assumptions, but in my opinion, a lot of men here seem to forget, or perhaps have never realized, the way men can control, manipulate, intimidate and yes, coerce women into doing things they do not want to do or wouldn't normally do. Maybe its because most of you are gay and mostly interact with each other, and maybe its because none of you are scumbags like that, but it is real. It may not be tangible or empircally provable, but many, many women know this. I mean, why do women stay in abusive marriages? ...

It doesn't have to be obvious, or threatening, or even dangerous, but men do this to women, whether they are aware of it or not. Do you know how prevalent, how pandemic, how swept under the rug abuse is, especially sexual abuse? Its fucking everywhere. And I am sick of these circular, apologetic, excuse filled articles and comments, when every damn day another high profile man is accused of, and USUALLY guilty of, crimes involving his fucking dick and putting it where it shouldn't be. And every damn time it happens, women are knocked 10 steps backward and have to try harder, prove harder and defend themselves harder just to stay on track of having a chance one day of being taken seriously.

God damn I hate the Palins and the energy they have put into this world.

After that, guess where the conversation goes? To banter about the mechanics of sexual intercourse given the length of Levi's penis and the girth of Bristol's torso.

God damn I hate the Palins and the energy they have put into this world.

This was kind of a weird way to end that comment.

I do agree with the main point that just because you don't remember doesn't mean you were raped (unless drugs were involved). It means you don't remember! You can't say what happened. The moral of the story is don't get so drunk that you black out, right?

I wonder if she's a lesbian. She has an awfully passive sense about what it is to be a sexual woman (just lie there). On the surface she's apologetic to the "guys", apparently assuming most of the commenters there are gay; but then she wants to lay down the law on what *really* male sexuality is about, even though she's urging it's intangible, just: really really real.

But I'm curious what Ann's own takeaway at the conclusion is? That's it's funny how the other (gay) (male) commenters just took off on penetrative dynamics? That men are so delightedly obsessed with penetration that they brush merrily past this unctious griefmonger's complaints?

Or perhaps you should not drink much at all if the situation looks like it might develop that way?

I remember a long time ago when Time Magazine had a special on college date rapes, and about a dozen women, I think, gave their stories. OK, some were date rapes, or at least likely so, but there were also several that I thought, "My God girl; didn't your momma teach you anything?" and a couple that had behaved in such a manner that even a guy as dense as I am would have started to think that maybe he was supposed to do something.

One of the more hateful and colorful commenters over there, called "the fierce urgency of whenever" also said this:

Alejandro, And I am on a ripping tear today - I've got 300+ freshmen, boys and girls working their asses off to pass my finals and today I found out a smart-ass little bastard of a jerk actually figured out a way to sniff the photocopiers (which, of course, are network accessible) and started selling my questions for tomorrow's exam. My two ancient ink-jets just gasped out the last of 1200 sheets...and I am seriously so fucking furious that I'm having his proctored because I might very well end up on the news for bashing the bastard, proving that one, I am really built like a brick shit house and, two, yes, red-heads have mean tempers. Sigh. So, forgive me, please, if I'm even less tolerant than usual.

Teaching college students. Yow!

It is humorous to note how many commenters over there included variants of "I hate Palin" in their posts. Must be the secret knock.

The main thing is to go on record of hating the Palins. Not just the politician Palin, but all of them. This is what happens when you dont reelect George W Bush. The hatred migrates ro the next normal Republican and now their families.

The sheer hatred that envelops some regarding Palin never ceases to amaze me. No doubt these people regard themselves as supremely rational, but they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by primitive emotion at the mere mention of a name.

"Are you saying that Althouse should read the discussion at the blog that linked to her to determine whether or not Bristol Palin might have been raped?"

Maybe after 20 comments about how Levi isn't sufficiently well-endowed to probe beyond Bristol's abdominal fat, they got around to a serious discussion about whether sex with an nearly unconscious 16-year-old girl constitutes rape.

Before the "sexual revolution" of, oh, about the late 60s, there used to be a quaint little norm about a gentleman not only not "taking advantage" of a woman in the condition of having had too much to drink, but also being almost chivalrous in doing whatever he could to secure her well-being. A man who did otherwise would be a cad. Pretty old fashioned, huh?

I can tell you there are not much worse feelings than waking up knowing you've been pounded and not remembering it....

There are not much worse feelings that waking up mutually nude with a woman and not knowing exactly what happened. The absolute worst is the initial stab of fear that you had unprotected sex with this person who might now be pregnant. Please tell me how this is less of a problem for the man.

Considering what a creep, what a loser, and what an opportunist Levi turned into [the left's hero!], it's no surprise that Levi had "sex" with Bristol while she was intoxicated. A real man would shown some restraint and thoughtfulness.

Errol Flynn was once charged with raping a woman aboard his private yacht. In the end, the judge admonished the woman with 'what did you think was going to happen with that man, his reputation and his yacht?' But that was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

The advice from Chicago was something along the lines of 'stay away from jazz and liquor and from men who play for fun'. I'm sure her parents didn't think alcohol would be involved. Seems like I can agree with Ann's initial assessment: She didn't deny responsibility, regrets what happened, and would encourage others not to do as she did. But if people insist on clouding their thinking with hate, any result they get will not be reasonable, and can be questioned.

A real man would control his urges and not take advantage of another human being unable to defend herself. Adolescent men who consciously attempt to wear down the defenses of a young lady then leave her post-coital are undisciplined just like Chappaquidick Teddy.

Lovemaking requires the emotional involvement of both parties. Otherwise, it is reduced to taking advantage of the defenseless which is a crime against our humanity.

The manly virtues dictate that self-discpline and control trump our primitive urge to act like a "rutting chimpanzee!"

It was what good fathers taught their sons, the corollary to what mothers taught their daughters about being careful to not put themselves into that position. I know for a fact it was followed by gentlemen, but of course not by all men. The fact it wasn't always followed explains why the norm existed in the first place. And then it went away, replaced by a norm for men of get all you can get by whatever means possible. It seems to me that sex with a unconscious woman, or even a semiconscious woman, isn't any fun. Probably isn't even sex at all, but just a fleshier version of doing it to a blowup doll.

It seems like calling it 'rape' just because there was alcohol/drunkenness objectifies the woman. She's no longer a moral creature with actual choices, but more like the car that a drunk driver chooses to take home. The car has no moral fault if someone gets hurt, after all. The only person at fault is the driver. And being drunk is not only not an excuse for the driver, it's an added crime.

So the man is given all the moral responsibility for the situation. While a woman is considered a passive object.

That's pretty demeaning to women, I think, putting them back in the place where they have to depend solely on a man making the right choices. She had choices too. There were choices leading up to that. That doesn't mean there wasn't rape, but it does mean that regret does not, by itself, equal rape. If the woman is excused by her choices because of being drunk, why is the man not given the same kind of moral excuse?

In one of the early church writings, I forget which right now, the writer talks about the evils of drunkenness. But makes the point that it's not being drunk itself that is the sin, it's the fact that being drunk opens the door to sinning. So, he said, avoid being drunk, and stay in control.

I think sex with a drunk person from a male should be considered rape by the male, unless the drunk person clearly indicated beforehand (when not drunk) that she wants sex when drunk. Females and males are different. There is a much greater chance that a male would force sex on a female than that a female would force sex on him. True, a female might unjustly force a male to have sex, but that is mostly just because affiliation (the obligation of contributing tor child support) is forced on a father regardless of whether he is married to the female. It is marriage rather than paternity that needs to determine filiation, the way it was in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Russia.

What is the alternative to drunk sex not being rape? Open season on any female so drunk as to be incapable of resistance? Not to say there should not be some discretion and gradation involved. For example, if the female was already in a sexual relationship with the male, or if there already was some sort of familiarity between the two, or if the female more encouraged the male to drink than vice versa, punishments might be reduced or some other offenses created to punish the male appropriately in proportion with the villainy of his crime. I don't like the idea of the male being less responsible when drunk, as this might encourage males getting drunk just so they can commit rape more freely. Encouraging rapists to get drunk seems like a bad idea.

Maybe we should ban alcohol for men. As the moral agents protecting all the delicate flowers, they're making choices not just for one, but for all. That's too much responsibility to allow for anything that might lead them to wrong choices, and impose these choices on whatever object happens to be near.

No Freeman, I should have been more clear. I think maybe Althouse should read Palin's whole version of the topic before she wades in with a legal opinion.

" I only read a short excerpt from her book, so I don't know what her overall intent is. Perhaps she's trying to say: Girls, don't drink yourself into a stupor when you're out in a tent with a boy." - Althouse

It's sad to witness the rush to identify the double standard which best allows society to condemn men. Apparently some believe men should be held responsible for their drunken actions because we don't want to encourage drinking. But women should not be held responsible for their drunken actions why? Encouraging them not to drink is an unfair restriction of their rights?

Before the "sexual revolution" of, oh, about the late 60s, there used to be a quaint little norm about a gentleman not only not "taking advantage" of a woman in the condition of having had too much to drink, but also being almost chivalrous in doing whatever he could to secure her well-being. A man who did otherwise would be a cad.

Certainly that would be the proper way to behave, just as it would be proper not to get so drunk you blackout and can’t remember what happened. Knowing that not everyone is so chivalrous (and that inhibitions lower just as much for your partner as they do for you under the influence of alcohol), a woman who doesn’t want this to happen would be wise to limit her alcohol consumption in mixed company. Of course, teenagers are not always wise.

I have my doubts about how often that quaint little norm was actually observed.

There are actually decent men out there. And then there are those who will take advantage.

I think most of us are all familiar with the mechanics of both male and female genitalia. Is it a stretch to say that it is maybe more of the man's fault when "blackout sex" occurs, in certain situations (specifically this one if its true)? I mean, he's the one who has to get hard and stick it in her. And let's be real, all a woman ever really has to do is lie there, conscious or not, for sex or rape (BIG DIFFERENCE BTW) to occur.

It seems to me that she is confusing, or conflating, black out with passed out. There's a big difference and you may not be able to tell by observing the drunk person whether they have reached the "black out" point or not.

It will be obvious that they're drunk but if you have been drinking too, it may not be obvious how drunk they are.

I guess teen co-ed camping in the wild without adult supervision is the norm in Alaska and it took a great deal of courage to tell that story as now other parents might think twice about it. Good for Bristol in revealing this lapse of judgement as a cautionary tale for others.

Not to knock Bristol, but I don't think she has the sophistication (or dishonesty) to try to manipulate readers into assuming Levi is a rapist. I think she was honestly relaying the events as she remembered them.I wouldn't call Levi Johnston a rapist. Horny? Unfaithful? Poor impulse control? Sure. But if 'the victim' continued to date him, and get engaged to him, I can't accept rape.

And I am on a ripping tear today - I've got 300+ freshmen, boys and girls working their asses off to pass my finals and today I found out a smart-ass little bastard of a jerk actually figured out a way to sniff the photocopiers (which, of course, are network accessible) and started selling my questions for tomorrow's exam.

This caught my attention - “sniff the photocopiers”? Is that like sniffing glue but with ink cartridges?

And being the ridiculously strong person she is, she blew it off w/o barely a scratch. I had a roommate like that who was about as progressive as you can get in an oddly archaic way. (Think Obama's mom a generation late.) It's a noble quality that inspires respect on whatever place in the political spectrum I find it. Sarah's version is a little more streetfighter, but so are her circumstances.

Being genetically blessed when it comes to my ability to handle alcohol, I'd say my main complaint as a kid in this area was that I couldn't really follow through on my impulses like guys could. There was a chilling effect, a loss of relative freedom. If some cute guy I met alone at 17 on vacation asked me out in a spontaneous fashion, I wasn't really all that free to say "Hell Yes!" and pick up on him w/o potential serious consequences - like getting knifed.

There is always that knowledge that teen girls have that says this particular guy seems normal, but under the influence he might be part of that small, yet significant minority, goes sideways and freaking knife you.

To ignore that knowledge, you really had to bim out or perhaps get very drunk. Or perhaps be carrying and trained in firearms, I don't know. Gay guys can happen upon similar violent circumstances and it doesn't seem to deter them, but at least they have the upper body strength.

As far as I know, there really is no straight, male equivalent threat - maybe you'd get your wallet stolen by a hooker or something, but you aren't under actual real physical threat.

This caught my attention - “sniff the photocopiers”? Is that like sniffing glue but with ink cartridges?

I think the copier's memory is hackable.

My guess was that they were network photocopiers, and they scan the image first. The student got into the system and accessed the scanned image.

More likely, the student snuck in and stole one of the copies, but that would make the instructor look bad for abandoning the photocopier. Better to make it an event that (s)he could not have foreseen.

I am probably over reacting, and can see both sides, but being a guy, I take the guys' side here.

Putting all the blame on the guy for sex when the gal is drunk is just plain sexist. Almost always she has as much or more culpability for getting drunk in an unprotected situation.

I hadn't thought much about the female side until a couple of years ago, after reading a book called something like "Queen Bees and Wannabes". The (female) author made the point that in high school, and even in middle school, some girls get drunk to have sex, because otherwise they would be considered sluts for doing so.

Combine this with the fact that, at least in a lot of colleges, the girls are binge drinking harder than the guys do. A lot of reasons are offered, such as that women get drunk faster on a lower level of alcohol, and that they tend to drink clear alcohol mixed drinks that slide right down, as compared to guys drinking beer.

Even college though can be made relatively safe for drinking. For example, some sororities have designated sober sisters, and even sober brothers. If taken seriously, it really works, keeping girls safe who do drink. One of their primary jobs is to keep the non-sober sisters from being cut out from the crowd, taken to a room, and having sex that she will regret. The iron-clad rule there is that if the girl wants the guy bad enough, she will still want him the next day when sober.

Yes, males should be gentlemen, but assuming that it was the guy's fault when the gal gets drunk and then has sex with him, just absolves her of her own responsibility.

I got about half way through the comments on that blog. They are very witty, and many of the commenters show a real flair for invective. But, my goodness, what a hate fest. Is that some kind of contest, or do they really feel that amount of jaw clenching fury towards a girl who is slightly overweight and her mother who occasionally garbles her syntax? Their rage is so disproportionate that they parody themselves rather than the Palins.....I urge tolerance and understanding for all drunken women. Some women need to play a bank shot. Their moral choice is to get drunk in order to have plausible deniability for their actions. And, of course, some young women, not used to the effects of liquor, get drunker than planned and bad things happen to them. There seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity in the Palin case. This wasn't a case of duct tape and chloroform. I couldn't possibly pass any kind of judgement on it, and, moreover, I think any attempt to make me care is a waste of my invaluable time.

When I was 16 and wearing pink hair accessories, I had a job interview with a Korean immigrant who had not developed either a PC facade nor a reactive bluster to others' PC facades.

While making chitchat about family, he implied that my excessively, naturally evolved 30-something brother should find a "very young girl". The interview went sideways and we got into it about male/female relationships - I was way too young to let even the most innocuous bs remark slide in those days.

His summary remark? "In the end, it is the man who can rape."

He offered me a much better position than I was interviewing for... I didn't call back.

Seems to me there's a simple distinction between passing out and simply being drunk. If you pass out and then the person next you decides it's a great time to have sex, you haven't consented. Consent requires consciousness (a new legal principle?!).

On the other hand, if you've had a little too much to drink, but give in to the heat of the moment, you've consented, regardless of how hazy your memories are the next morning. This has to be true, because if it isn't, the implication is that a certain level of sobriety is necessary for consent. But since what's good for the goose is good for the gander, it's easy to show that this principle is not workable and leads to contradictions. Consider the case (which is almost certain to be true in most instances) where your partner is just as snookered as you are. If the woman claims her drunkenness removes her implicit consent (and unless she says no, she has consented) and absolves her of responsibility, then the same goes for her male partner - he can claim he can't remember what happened either, and therefore he can't be held responsible. This excuse - I was drunk and can't remember what happened - could turn into the rapist's best friend.

I had a guy friend who used to. It would scare the crap out of me if I did. The only time one of my girlfriends had a blackout was the time I think she was roofied. Which brings me to another point, if your friend is so drunk she is obviously unable to make a decision, you can protect her. We were out with a couple of guys and one of them was really insistent that we go home with him and I said no. Sure, she may have slept with him sober, but it clearly wasn’t her call at this exact moment.

One of their primary jobs is to keep the non-sober sisters from being cut out from the crowd, taken to a room, and having sex that she will regret.

Exactly.

Combine this with the fact that, at least in a lot of colleges, the girls are binge drinking harder than the guys do.

Boy, lot of words for what seems to be a simple concept to me. If the woman is unconsious, inebriated, or just simply three sheets to the wind, you don't take advantage of her. If you do, your behavior is criminal as far as I'm concerned (even if there's not a DA willing, or able, to bring charges).

Some years ago, while in the middle of a strange call in Penn Station with an aggressive elderly female drunk (I was a paramedic then), got to talking with the cops. I notice a picture of a young gal wearing just a sweater top and set of panties. One of the cops noticed me looking at it and remarked, "Oh yeah, that's one of our other favorite locals, Crazy Sadie". I laughed and still looking at the picture, said "Geez, it looks like a motel room". He got serious, turned me around and said, "Hey, we don't ask you what you do in the back of your ambulance."

Do I know anything illegal happened? No. Do I know whether something unethical, immoral and unsavory was represented, regardless of how obtusely, in that short conversation? I'm pretty sure yes (NYC cops in my experience then had 2 categories of individuals, those who were cops or with them, and those who weren't). I guess transgressions of sexual ethics is sort of like obsenity for me. I know it when I see it.

Assuming Bristol's account correct, was she naive? Yes. Is Levi a major creep (which is much more serious to me). Also, yes.

"edutcher said... When the cad in question, having displayed rapacious intent, keeps filling the lady's glass after the lady's judgment has departed, it may not be rape, but it isn't consensual, either."

Does it bother you that you have to invent details for your conclusion to be persuasive? Isn't this a fair hint your position is only sustainable when these other factors are present?

I wish Bristol Palin hadn't written this memoir; I really, really wish she hadn't. I've disliked the vilifying and piling on of the Palins since day one and have kept wishing and wishing folks would move on and let them live their private lives. But then it seems that in key instances, some of them insist on making them public! So, then, what is one to do? To think?

Add me to the list of people who have blacked out. (Rum and coke) Very odd the day after -- things I could remember, things I could vaguely remember, things I couldn't remember at all, yet I was told that I had done them by people whom I trusted not to be yanking my chain.

Damned straight. It happened once when I was 20. The young lady I was seeing at the time was extremely pissed off at me the next more...for an extremely good reason. After that, with only a minor binge here and there, once my cheeks start to tingle, I back off or stop for a while.

and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

I always thought Molly Bloom's line was one of the most erotic in modern fiction. Joyce, I understand, described "Yes" as the female word, because it indicated "acquiescence and the end of all resistance." Maybe Joyce is just another pontificating fool, but I don't think someone who would simply initiate intercourse with a semi-consious woman would even understand what he was talking about.

The other tough thing is this sense that, from one side or the other, one's supposed to speak of/treat the Palins differently than one would anyone else. That is (broadly and crudely speaking): If you're left, you have to be hateful and the Palins have to be awful; if you're right, you mostly have to defend or at least look the other way and the Palins have to be marvelous. I mean, WTF?

---

Here's the thing I see, when I sit back and look at what appears in the excerpt released so far (at least, what I have seen--if there are lengthier ones, please let me know), putting aside the fact that it's Bristol in particular and, instead, speaking more generally:

You have someone saying that on the very night they got drunk for the very first time, sex took place for the very first time. (I realize that's awkward phrasing, but I honestly don't know how to evaluate what happened in that tent: entirely consensual, partly consensual, drunken, blacked-out, rape, what-have-you.)

You have someone saying she woke up to hear the guy talking (bragging?) about it to his buddies on the other side of the tent wall.

You have someone who writes later on in the excerpt that when she got pregnant (and I'm assuming that was due to a separate encounter, not the same one? Especially if she was 16 in the first encounter due to the age she was when the baby was born?), she was on birth control pills at the time.

And that she was on birth control pills due to her problems with [menstrual] cramps (implying: "and not for that OTHER reason").

I dunno, guys. I just dunno. Doesn't that all seem a little...well, trite...to you? I mean, I didn't just fall of the turnip truck yesterday. I'm old enough to have heard each of those things (1. 1st drunk + drunken 1st sexual encounter, little/no memory ; 2. on pill for "cramps"; 3. got pregnant even though on the pill!) many, many, many times in my life.

I've even, on very, very rare occasion, personally been told of all three happening to the same person, though never in that short of a time period.

Of course, each of those things can and do happen. Of course, all three of those can and have happened (on rare occasion).

But it does sort of defy the odds a tad, doesn't it? It does seem a tad cliched, doesn't it? It does seem a bit convenient, doesn't it?

In short, it does sort of seem what girls have, for ye these many decades (at least) said when they're trying to put certain situations into the best light possible in terms of taking personal responsibility and--perhaps more significantly-- owning their own sexuality and sexual choices, doesn't it?

Perhaps I'm a bit of a cynic. And I'm not inclined to come down all that hard on teen-agers, for pete's sake (rape excepted: but then, we don't know that's what it was and, as Althouse said, Bristol didn't outright say that, did she?). I can understand a fair amount, having been a teen-ager and then spending a few more decades on earth thereafter.

Still. Color me a tad...skeptical?

---

Back to most important point, for me:

I really, really wish Bristol hadn't written this memoir. It's her choice and I respect her choice and I bear her no ill will.

AprilApple - "It's no surprise that Levi had "sex" with Bristol while she was intoxicated. A real man would shown some restraint and thoughtfulness."

vet66 said..."A real man would control his urges and not take advantage of another human being unable to defend herself."========================Hey you two, no! A real man, unattached, fucks a willing woman he is attracted to. It's just that simple.Biology 101.

The blather you state is just obediently nodding your head to feminist cant."A real man, horny with inhibitions lowered from partying, does not ever have sex with a horny woman made "vulnerable" from partying. Or he is not a real man. However, the woman of course, operating in the same motivations and circumstances...NEVER becomes less than a REAL woman. You cannot criticise the personal and moral shortcomings of an eager to screw woman..because unlike men..they are the victims." (end feminist cant)

Times when a homely woman highly attracted to a true hunk of a guy with money has said "Look, I want to sleep with you so bad, but you are now in a state of lowered inhibition and in a delicate emotional state because your fiancee dumped you. You are unable to defend yourself from what is for you, perhaps less than optimal sexual encounters you may regret later..So, no."???? Can we say ZERO times!

I guess the other thing I want to say is this (please don't whack me TOO hard ; ) ):

Look, based on all his actions later, I think Levi is real bad apple, a jerk and what I would consider a charming [to the girl] nightmare of a boyfriend if I had a daughter. That said, let's keep in mind that Levi is just 5-1/2 months older than Bristol.

In so many other contexts, don't so many people always say that teen-age girls are more mature, capable of exercising better judgment (in at least the context of being teen-aged) than teen-age boys? It's not like we're talking an adult male with a minor girl, or even a teen-age boy who's two or three years older than his girlfriend.

Now, if this was rapenone of that matters. But if it really wasn't, then I'm really not comfortable with painting Levi as the heavy (and non-gentleman) and Bristol as the victim (and taken-advantage-of lady). And, to be frank, under those circumstances, I'm not really comfortable with letting Bristol off the hook for painting it like that...

"G Joubert said...I love it how some would posture men as victims in this dynamic. Psst, it doesn't pass the laugh test."=================Sort of like women who refuse to take any and all responsibility for anything adverse in their lives by using the old victimhood excuses doesn't pass the laugh test?

"Well, yes, I DID take my jeans and panties off, but I didn't intend for anything to actually happen! And besides that I had several beers. And it was cold, so I got in the sleeping bag with the heel that I thought was my friend just to get warm...before the awful thing happened!! Boo hoo hoo....."

*****************"Hoosier Daddy said...How much of a lightweight can you be to pass out from wine coolers?"

It's possible if the girl is drinking them like a fish. I remember one coed who flat knocked herself out from downing a 1.5 liter Chardonnay bottle by herself in an hour and a half.

But keep in mind too that the whole existance of wine coolers is based on "female inhibition lowerer" accounting for half the sales. (Not that it is unique. A dozen "female cocktails" are derived from high alcohol content and mixing that masks how strong the drink is. Some have unofficial names like "Between the Sheets", the "Absolutely Anal Sex Special".(AASS). Cocaine? Part of its marketing is women will fuck to get it, are more agreeable to fucking when on it.

Hoosier Daddy said...Bristol should at least finish college before writing her memoirs.

===============It took her Mom seven years to get a degree, and Mom didn't have a love child to care for.What are you saying?Bristol has to wait 10-15 years until she graduates college in order to write books that will get her big money off her celebrityhood?What if no one remembers her by the time she finishes college?

I wish Bristol Palin hadn't written this memoir; I really, really wish she hadn't. I've disliked the vilifying and piling on of the Palins since day one and have kept wishing and wishing folks would move on and let them live their private lives. But then it seems that in key instances, some of them insist on making them public! So, then, what is one to do? To think?

I pretty much agree with everything that Reader said. Now, maybe this was intended as a cautionary tale, which got lost in the excerpting, but from a general "stories of my life" perspective, I just don't think that how one loses his or her virginity should be fodder for public discourse. Some things are private (obviously, a true crime would be an exception).

One of my complaints about reactions to the Palins is that liberals always, always go to sex first- they're obsessed with Sarah's sex life, sexuality, etc, in a sick way (because they can't handle a feminine conservative), and it drops down to them being obsessed with that of her kids.

Sometimes when people get a little bit of fame and people know their name they get an itch. It is especailly bad when you get that fame through no fault of your own but because of the actions of your family or friendst that thrust you into the spotlight even though you are only a periperal part of the story.

You see this all the time on reality shows. Like the "Real Housewifes of New Jersey." They have this person called Kim G. She is the mother of one of the friends of a son of one of the housewifes. She managed to insinuate herself into the show and get filmed doing increasingly bizzare things to the point that this sixty something woman was dancing on a stripper pole.

Bristol is making a mistake in trying to parley her relfected glory into something other than what she should be. A single mother who is getting ready to start her life.

But unlike reality television this is real life. And unfortunately her every word and mistake will be maginfied and talked about and ridiculed and scorned and praised and blown out of proportion.

She might want to take a lesson from Kim G. Being famous is not what it is cracked up to be.

"In the 1940 movie “The Philadelphia Story,” James Stewart explains to Katharine Hepburn that he did not take advantage of her the night before because she was the worse for drink and 'there are rules about that sort of thing.'"

Impossible to know whether Bristol was raped. She does not claim that she was raped.

It is hard to believe that Sarah Palin would let her 16 year old daughter spend the night with a boy. She should have put Bristol on birth control pills first. BTW, Bristol has every right to hate Levi so her story needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Men have been getting women drunk for centuries so they could bed the woman. At what point in the progression towards total inebriation does a drunk woman become a helpless victim rather than a willing participant?

Sometimes women use drunkenness as an excuse for doing something they know they shouldn't and as a way to encourage men to be sexually aggressive.

If (the morning after) a woman cannot remember agreeing to sex the night before, that is not proof that she was raped. A man should not be assumed to be a rapist in that situation, it needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

If a woman claims rape but those charges are proven false, she should be imprisoned for the same length of sentence as her alleged rapist would have served if convicted.

My original comment about the man's reaction was built upon those first few moments when you wake up in your birthday suit next to someone likewise clad. We're not talking about a confirmed pregnancy, God forbid, but all of the what if's and what happened's that go through his mind. My point was that it's no less disorienting and no less apprehensive for the man.

As far as this is concerned, though,

Sure, there may be some sort of emotional cost involved, but the obligations of men have been negated by a society that could ultimately care less about their involvement.

How do the family law judgements shake out on your planet? Because that's not my take here on Earth :)

And, to be frank, under those circumstances, I'm not really comfortable with letting Bristol off the hook for painting it like that...

I’m not reading Bristol saying it was Levi’s fault, just that it was an all around uncomfortable situation for her. If she had been really upset, surely she would have dumped him.

I definitely agree with you that writing this memoir was not wise, but I’m not sure anyone has accused Bristol of being especially wise…the lure of easy money at that age would be hard to pass up.

If a woman claims rape but those charges are proven false, she should be imprisoned for the same length of sentence as her alleged rapist would have served if convicted.

These kind of comments concern me simply because the nature of rape is very he said/she said and thus hard to prove. I think you would have to have very story proof that the accusation was basically fraud.

Lots of black & white comments here (which is understandable, as reactions to black & white thinking from the other side). But I'm with Night2Night & Joubert, among others, to this extent: you can consider an act to not meet the legal standards of "rape", yet still consider it the act of a cad, jerk, creep-- an act unworthy of a good man, or (to put it more quaintly) a gentleman. And this doesn't exonerate the woman of responsibility, either. I think this is an eminently conservative position.

As Mike (the great Jimmy Stewart) says in The Philadelphia Story: "You were extremely attractive, and as for distant and forbidding, on the contrary. But you also were a little the worse - or the better - for wine, and there are rules about that."

To which Tracy (Katherine Hepburn) replies: "Thank you, Mike. I think men are wonderful."

Actually, that whole scene-- the morning of her wedding, the "morning after" Tracy had drunk "a flock of wine" & gone off to the pool with Mike, and suffers, precisely, a black out (wakes up in her bed, can't remember what did or didn't happen the night before)-- is very relevant to this discussion. Wish I could find a clip of the whole thing, it's so great. There's a description (with dialogue) of that scene here (though the whole "morning after" scene really begins in the previous section).

What we know is that Bristol drank too many wine coolers, and when she woke up she didn't remember anything because she'd "blacked out," and she wasn't a virgin anymore.

Does that sum it up? Anything else?

I didn't say anyone was necessarily a victim here, of rape or anything else. I did suggest that Levi Johnston may been ungentlemanly, taking advantage of her in an intoxicated state. And I don't care what anyone says, of all people he was not the victim. Like blaming the hens for the fox getting feathers in its teeth after raiding the henhouse.

Furthermore, given all of his antics over the last two years, what Bristol says about Levi here is pretty tame (unless she made it up), and he deserves what he gets.

I think Bristol's story is intended to be a cautionary tale for teenage girls. Basically she's saying, "I put myself in this situation and the outcome was bad. Learn from me and don't do the same thing."

The situation she describes (Girl gets drunk, has regrettable sex.) is fairly common. So is the "Here, have another wine cooler," gambit. Therefore, I don't even see this as a Levi-is-a-jerk story. He just happens to be the particular guy filling the teenage jerk boy archetype in this story.

As for whether or not it was rape: Was it legally actionable? Probably not. Is Levi a jerk to be avoided by sane women? Certainly. But we already knew that.

As Mike (the great Jimmy Stewart) says in The Philadelphia Story: "You were extremely attractive, and as for distant and forbidding, on the contrary. But you also were a little the worse - or the better - for wine, and there are rules about that."

The same feminazis claiming that men are responsible for drunken coupling would brand Stewart a sexist chauvanist pig for being chivalrous.

Its ironic. Our society has been hell-bent on turning Men into metrosexual punks. Now they whine that there are no real Men left.

I am unfortunately one of those who does get blackout drunk. That is the reason I stopped drinking totally in 1984 and have not had a drink since. It is a terrible feeling to wake up in the AM and not know if you need to apologize to a bunch of people for your actions of the night before.

What's jarring about the comment Althouse quotes is a weird phenomenon I've seen elsewhere in writings on Palin, a very particular kind of non sequitur, rhetorical swerve.

Here, the commenter goes on a heartfelt tirade that is ostensibly sympathetic to Bristol Palin's experience, defends her (or a woman in her position), rebukes a certain kind of defender of Levi. From that long passionate spiel (before the last line), we would presume this commenter sees Bristol Palin as the victim, Levi as the bad guy, and would welcome Bristol's account of her experience as contributing to awareness on this topic.

But in the end-- this is what we are to take away, somehow, from the preceding passage-- it's the Palins who deserve hate, blame, and scorn. They are somehow guilty of the injustice done to them. They are the bad guys who have put this bad "energy" into the world-- thus, Palin's assailants are really Palin's victims (the victims of that bad energy).

A lot of MSM writings on Palin engage in this very non-sequitur. E.g. on the topic of the Gifford shooting & the "blood libel," or the topic of the MSM's shameless email feeding frenzy. The writer will note how the issue at hand involves some unfairness to Palin. Then, thus-- here's the non-sequitur, because it follows without transition or argument, just something to be taken for granted-- Palin is the one to blame. For being "controversial," creating a "media circus" around her, using inflammatory language (like "blood libel"), etc.

Palin's the one who created the "bad energy"; the MSM, her hapless victims, afflicted by the witch's spell, go after her like a pack of ravenous dogs, making fools of themselves. The poor things. God, isn't that woman hateful.

"God damn I hate the Palins and the energy they have put into this world."

In a way it's true though, they are so powerful they conrol the minds of weak-willed liberals. Driving them crazy every day.

If for no other reason I love Sarah and the rest that much more.

+1000I was wondering if there are any sane liberals that are highly disturbed over this silly Palin hate-fest other than us @ althouse. I only have 3 guesses.

1- they seem desperate, esp since Obama is not doing a good job2- they must be bored3- simple bigotry -- they hate Republicans/ conservatives with a vigor not seen since anti-black ideology during the Reconstruction

i don't mind the Palins (Bristol included) make that money, honey. They were trashed the moment they challenged the Great One in '08 and have been seen as the evil kulaks in Stalin-like mentality of latte libs' world. So let the Palins have some profit.

So long as they don't complain about the "fame" like the paparazzi hungry stars in H-Wood (and it doesn't look like they are that way)

It is a terrible feeling to wake up in the AM and not know if you need to apologize to a bunch of people for your actions of the night before.

Its more terrible for the kids. I'm the child of two alcoholics. My "super power" is that I can walk into a room and immediately get a vibe when "monsters" are about. I developed this ability as a child coming home from school every afternoon.

But in the end-- this is what we are to take away, somehow, from the preceding passage-- it's the Palins who deserve hate, blame, and scorn. They are somehow guilty of the injustice done to them. They are the bad guys who have put this bad "energy" into the world-- thus, Palin's assailants are really Palin's victims (the victims of that bad energy).

Yashu nailed it. I was really rolling along with the original commenter's point...and then promptly got whiplash from her blame-the-victim 180.

Liberalism really is a mental disorder, isn't it? You rarely see this type of disassociation except in dangerous and unbalanced people.

"Over the years, college women have learned to call it rape, but why haven't they learned to report it, if it is rape or some other crime? You can chose to think of something bad that happened as a crime but are you willing to hold your opinion up to the judgment of officials who have the obligation to treat the accused man fairly? Almost all of those incidents go unreported. Exactly why?"

It's hard to prove, the person who did it is a family member/friend/friend of friends and you don't want to rock the boat, you don't want to relive it, you blame yourself for putting being in a bad situation....There are lots of reasons not to report.

Shanna: one of the principal reasons women don't report incidents of unwanted sex is that they know it wasn't rape. While the woman might have been subjectively conflcted, her outward manifestations of assent preclude a legitimate rape claim. E.g., Forty-nine percent of the women that Mary Koss said were sexually assaulted in her infamous report actually labeled the experience a "miscommunication." (By the way, Koss cited with approval the work of then-feminist darling Eugene Kanin, who only became a nitwit later when his false rape report posited a result that the sexual grievance industry didn't like). A full 73 percent of the women whom Koss characterized as rape victims said that they hadn’t been raped. (Hmm, if the women who were "raped" didn't know they were being raped, how on earth can we assume their "rapists" knew they were raping them?)